Chittenden County median income more than $10,000 above Vermont's median

How much do you need to make to be wealthy in Vermont? Here's a look at the income breakdown in the state.
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Chittenden County’s median household income — the mark where half earn more and half earn less — stood at $67,833 in 2016. That’s $2,000 more than second place Grand Isle County and $10,000 more than the statewide median of $57,661.(Photo11: GLENN RUSSELL/FREE PRESS FILE)Buy Photo

It’s not surprising to discover that Chittenden County is still the highest income county in the state, according to recent U.S. Census Bureau data. The county’s median household income — the mark where half earn more and half earn less — stood at $67,833 in 2016. That’s $2,000 more than second place Grand Isle County and $10,000 more than the statewide median of $57,661.

The highest income counties, except for Windsor, are all in northwest Vermont, essentially the greater Burlington area, and are the counties in the state above the statewide median. Windsor County, which includes the towns of Woodstock, White River Junction, and Norwich, benefits from its close proximity to Hanover, New Hampshire and West Lebanon. Those towns have a lot going on that helps create good jobs and high incomes for Vermonters who work in New Hampshire. It’s worth noting that Norwich, just across the river from Hanover, boasts the highest median family income in Vermont — higher than any town in Chittenden County.

Three of the four lowest income counties are the Northeast Kingdom and the fourth is Windham County, home of Brattleboro, and just south of Windsor County. All four counties are also the only ones below the U.S. median of $50,046.

Not surprisingly, counties with high median incomes have low rates of poverty. Chittenden County’s poverty rate of 9.6 percent is second lowest in the state. The highest poverty rates are in the Northeast Kingdom and in Rutland, Windham, and Bennington counties. In southern Vermont only Windsor County does not have a high poverty rate.

Even in these poverty statistics there is some good news. The U.S. poverty rate in 2016 was 15.3 percent, which means that only Essex and Orleans Counties have poverty rates above the U.S. level, and they are not that much above it.

The goal of economic development policy it to raise peoples’ standard of living, giving them higher incomes and a lower likelihood of being poor. I assume that every Vermont policymaker shares that goal. When they think of economic development, they tend to ask how what kinds of policies — grants, investments, targeted spending programs — will raise incomes and lower the extent of poverty in areas that lag the rest of the state.

But there is another way to increase people’s incomes and reduce poverty. Rather than trying to improve economic conditions, move people to where the economic conditions are better.

That’s what people actually do when they make their own decisions. Immigrants move to different countries to make themselves better off. Americans moved off the farm and to cities in the late 19th and 20th centuries. Over the past 50 years people have increasingly moved to southern and western states because economic conditions and opportunities were better there than in the Northeast and Midwest.

Entrepreneurs and business people could create jobs in low-income areas. Most of the time they don’t, and it’s hard for government policies to counter the fundamental forces that cause incomes to be low.

Vermonters are indeed moving to areas with more opportunity where they can make themselves better off. In 1990, 37 percent of Vermont’s population lived in the four northwestern counties. Today those counties, the richest in the state, are home to 41 percent of all Vermonters. That change tells me that Vermonters do respond to changing economic conditions where they live: They move to where they think their future will be brighter and leave places that don’t look as good. Unfortunately, that doesn’t help the people who don’t move.